If there is a big body to deal with on the basketball court, Acy is there to move him. If there is an opponent gobbling up rebounds at an embarrassing rate, Acy goes in and evens up the battle.

“I’ve always embraced the role of doing the dirty work,” Acy said following the first of three workouts at Del Sol High School in Paradise, Nevada as the Raptors gear up for the Las Vegas Summer League tournament which begins Friday.

So when Dwane Casey came with a new, but different kind of challenge there was a never a question of ducking it or trying to change anyone’s mind despite the fact he is being asked to move, even temporarily, to a position he has never played in his life.

When Casey approached Acy with his idea to move him outside the paint and learn to defend the small forward spot, a position that particularly in the Eastern Conference is being held down by some of the more explosive players in the game, Acy had only one answer: ‘Yes.’

“I love the challenge,” Acy said. “I just think they see my athleticism, my tools I guess. They see it in me and they want to see if I will commit to it and I’m up for that. I have been working real hard on my lateral movement, my conditioning.”

Casey said one look at the way the small forward position is being used in the Eastern Conference made this move a no brainer.

“If you look at our conference you’ve got LeBron James who is a power four or a power three,” Casey said. “You have Carmelo (Anthony) who is a power three. With Quincy playing that position we can get him out there where he can defend those guys, get in front of them, use his strength and quickness to body those guys.”

Rudy Gay, who barring a trade will start at small forward for the Raptors, has added 10-15 pounds of muscle to his frame as well making him a better matchup against the superstars who spend much of their time at small forward.

Acy isn’t sure the move is a full time thing, but if it gets him on the court he’s all for it.

“It’s not like I’ll just be playing the three,” Acy said. “It’s a matchup deal. They will have me guarding the bigger three’s. But as long as I see the floor I won’t complain. They tell me to go out there and guard a point guard, I’ll go out there and bust my ass.”

Acy said the plan to play more small forward changed his off-season focus.

“This whole summer has been pretty much dedicated to my leg strength,” Acy said. “Being able to stay down in the stance because it’s different when you are guarding bigs. You’re low but you’re now low the entire possession. (At power forward) you’re up there battling. You got your upper body (holding guys off). When you’re in the paint it’s mostly wrestlin’. When you are out on the perimeter it’s more skill and footwork.”

And while the primary goal of the change is to get a strong, quick defensive presence at the position when Gay is not in, Acy will be expected to get his offence from a completely different area of the court.

With that in mind, he has put in a ton of work on his mid-range jump shot, and the results have impressed coach Casey.

“Not the three-pointer but the mid-range jumper and he has got it down pat,” Casey said. “His offensive rebounding is also a plus for him.

“I wouldn’t say any offence is a bonus, but we’re not expecting a ton of offence. The key thing we got to have this year is guys really grinding it and playing with toughness because look at our conference. It’s a knock-down, drag-it-out conference.”

And in Acy, Casey sees just the right tool set to stay in that fight.

Acy and the Raptors will have a minimum of five games in the Las Vegas Summer League’s new tournament format giving him plenty of opportunities to go to battle in his new, slightly lifted, environment.

GAY, LOWRY, DEROZAN SHOW UP IN VEGAS

Workout No. 1 for the Raptors at the Vegas Summer League began with a few missing bodies and ended with a few additional one’s.

Valanciunas had some travel delays on his way to Vegas but was expected to make it for Thursday’s workout.

Stone still has to pass a physical before his free agent deal becomes official and only then can he join the team in Vegas.

Those two absences, though, were overshadowed when the core of the Raptors roster showed up towards the end of the workout in the form of Rudy Gay, DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry.

The three are here to get some work in together. Lowry has clearly been hitting the gym hard. He looks far more ripped and far less rounded than he did at any point in his Raptors tenure.

Gay also looks like he has bulked up. DeRozan appears the same but his off-season work was all about developing some consistency from three-point range. Bulking up or down wasn’t on the agenda.

COACHING STAFF NOT YET FILLED OUT

Officially, Dwane Casey’s coaching staff right now consists of himself and Nick Nurse.

But two familiar faces were running drills and helping out when the doors to the Raptors’ summer league workout home were opened yesterday.

On one court was Tom Sterner, a member of Casey’s staff last year. On another working with some shooters on their technique was John Townsend, another staffer last season.

While neither coach is officially signed it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

“We’ve still got to work out terms with them,” Casey said.

But as far as a lead assistant, that particular face has yet to show itself. For the past two seasons that man has been Casey’s good fried Johnny Davis but Davis was moved out and Casey has been hunting his replacement.

Or more precisely Casey and president and GM Masai Ujiri have been discussing replacements.

“The good thing about what Masai has allowed me to do is work together in naming the staff,” Casey said. “I go out and bring some names back but I don’t want to term it ‘my guys’ or ‘management’s guys.’ I prefer to call it ‘our guys.’

Casey said his staff should be filled out by the time summer league games begin which is Saturday for the Raptors.

While Casey is technically working on the third year of his three-year deal, he does not see that as an impediment in bringing in a new lead assistant.

“The good thing about it is I have good relationships around the league. Masai has a good reputation around the league,” he said. “I’m not going out there saying ‘Hi, this is my last year.’ I’m going into this year fighting so no, it hasn’t been hard finding people. We’ve looked at a bunch of guys around the NBA, some of the guys were employed by other teams so they were obviously harder trying to pull them away from those other teams, but the guys we got were guys we wanted and very qualified.”

Nurse, who comes with an offensive reputation with his NBA D-League teams having led the league in scoring in each of the past three seasons, will be relied on for his offensive expertise but will not be in charge of the offence per se.

“I’m not going to get into offensive guy or defensive guy,” Casey said. “(Nurse) comes in with an offensive (reputation) because he did do a good job in the D-League with that. But we’re not going to be running up and down. We’re going to play basketball. We’re going to have a tempo and pace that fits us. We are not going to play fast. We’re not going to play slow. We’re going to play at pace.”

This is dramatically different from a year ago when the Raptors, at management’s insistence, tried to force an up-tempo game plan on a roster that just wasn’t an up-tempo team. Casey said that plan has been mothballed.

“If you watch the final two series in the Eastern Conference, the semifinal and the final and there was maybe one game where it got crazy and they put up a lot of shots. What it was mostly was half court, grind-it-out basketball. If it’s running on misses or running on turnovers, we will do that but if not we come down set solid screens, pick people, attack the rim, if there’s an open three we will take it but we have to be able to execute playoff style basketball.”

And the men who will help make that work should be arriving in Vegas any day now to join Casey and the beginnings of his staff that are already here.

LOVING PSYCHO-T SIGNING

The news of power forward Tyler Hansbrough’s impending addition to the Raptors roster was greeted with open arms by the young Raptors taking part in the Las Vegas Summer League.

Quincy Acy, one of the few bangers willing to step on anyone’s toes in the league, basically said the more the merrier when asked about the addition of Psycho-T.

“It’s his role, to bring toughness and energy and people don’t like that,” Acy said of some of the players in the league who have taken exception to Hansbrough’s tactics. “People don’t like to play against that.”

Acy has had his fair share of tussels on the court as the result of his non-stop motor and he sees a similar player in Hansbrough.

“He plays hard and he plays tough,” Acy said. “I appreciate him. I know that people are going to hate it when we are in the game together. I do know that. That’s two people that are not going to stop. I look forward to that.”

One of the Raptors who did take exception to Hansbrough’s excessive physicality was Jonas Valanciunas who last February was just coming back from his hand injury when the 6-foot-9 Hansbrough wrestled him to the ground resulting in Valanciunas coming up holding the previously injured hand.

Valanciunas was en route to Vegas and unavailable for comment Wednesday but Terrence Ross is sure all will be forgiven once they are one the same side.

“I remember when Quincy (Acy) and Rudy (Gay) got into it one night in Memphis and now they’re on the same team,” Ross aid. “He’ll get over it. It’s nothing.”

Hansbrough’s signing will become official once he passes his physical.

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